


Overs-verse, Academy to Arus years

by Todesengel



Series: Overs-verse [3]
Category: Voltron: Lion Voltron, Voltron: Vehicle Voltron
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-30
Updated: 2011-08-29
Packaged: 2017-10-23 05:48:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 21
Words: 6,911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/246898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Todesengel/pseuds/Todesengel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ficlets set during the VFs time at the Academy and the years leading up to Arus</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Anna & Keith, Keith age 14

They almost got stopped at the door, but Bobby was bouncing tonight, and Bobby owed her close to a hundred bucks from being stupid and playing poker with her, so they got waved through. Anna deposited him in a booth in the corner and went to the bar to get the drinks.

"Hey there chica, haven't seen you in a moon's age," Jojo called to her, and Anna grinned and winked and said, "My baby bro's starting at the big A tomorrow and I figured he should get a proper send off."

"Damn, girl, I thought you liked this brother."

"Dumbass," Anna said, and she shoved Jojo's shoulder with a bit more force than was strictly necessary. "Lissen, can you do me a favor?"

"Depends." Jojo leaned forward on the counter and raised a heavily pierced eyebrow. "You gonna pay up your tab any time soon?"

"I'm good for it, you know me," Anna said, and then she nodded to where Keith sat, looking even younger than he really was, small and vulnerable in the little corner booth. "Look, just watch out for him for me, okay? He's too cute for his own good and as dumb as a brick about the real world."

"Well bless my great-aunt's ingrown toenail. Could it really be true? Could Anna Davies actually have a heart somewhere in there?"

"Fuck off, he's family," Anna said, and she collected their drinks -- a beer for her, and a rum-and-coke for Keith, because she might have a soft spot for her baby brother, but it was high time for Keith to learn about alcohol -- and went back to their booth. She snagged the maraschino cherry out of Keith's drink before she pushed the glass across the table.

"What's in this," Keith said, sniffing the glass suspiciously.

"Soda."

Anna leaned back in her seat and stared at Keith across the table. Her baby brother all grown up and still as dumb and trusting at fourteen as he was the day he jumped off the roof after she and Will told him that if he tied a towel around his neck like a cape, he'd be able to fly. Those kids at the Academy were going to eat him alive, and as much as Anna hated to admit that she had a weakness, as much as she swore that she hated her family, she still couldn't prevent the twisted, sickly feeling that crawled into her stomach at the thought of Keith -- sweet, dumb, innocent little Keith -- being at the mercy of all those kids.

"Listen," she began, but Keith started coughing and gasping, tears leaking out from between his tightly closed eyes, and whatever she was going to say was forgotten as she thumped him on the back until a goodly bit after he was able to breathe again.

"That's not soda," he finally managed to say, wiping his eyes with his shirtsleeve.

Anna rolled her eyes and took a long pull of her beer. "No shit, Sherlock." She leaned back in her seat and let her legs stretch out underneath the table, kicking Keith's mile-long legs out of her way (and she was never, ever going to forgive her little brother for suddenly being able to look _over_ her, instead of up to her). "Consider that lesson number one: your new best friend, alcohol."


	2. Keith, age 14

By the time he enrolled in the Academy, the story about Anna making a teacher cry had snowballed into something of near mythic proportions, so the first time Keith heard the story – or at least one version of it – he'd nearly choked on his cereal.

"It's the truth," Shannon said. "I swear." He leaned in and beckoned the others closer. "I head she's the Grand High Inquisitor of the G.G.'s super-secret, officially non-existent interrogation squad."

"Yeah, sure." Jeff leaned back and crossed his arms, a disbelieving sneer on his face. "That's such crap."

"No, I swear, it's true. She's your sister, right Davies?" Shannon said as he turned to Keith. "Tell him!"

"Um." Keith looked down at the table, because he really didn't want to get in a fight in the first week of the term like Will had. "Yeah, it's, uh. I mean she did make a teacher cry but she's not. I mean. She's studying medicine. Not, y'know, learning how to torture someone."

"Like she'd tell you if she was," Shannon said, and the conversation turned to the club fair, much to Keith's relief.

Still, that wasn't quite the end of it because after breakfast Jeff grabbed him by the arm and pulled him aside and said, "She seriously made a teacher cry?"

"Yeah," Keith said, and he would have explained how it had been a new, nervous, _young_ teacher who'd never had any actual classroom experience before and all Anna had done was point out that he'd made a couple of mistakes on the board and he'd just sort of broken down, and there had been no threatening with knives or anything of that nature, but Jeff hadn't given him a chance, because his expression had changed – become slightly guarded and wary, and it was exactly the same as the look most of the older instructors had given Keith that first day of classes.

"We're going to be late," Keith said instead and pulled his arm out of Jeff's grasp.


	3. Pidge, first impressions

_Everybody_ knew about the Davies kids, of course, and the way Pidge remembered it, they hadn't been there more than five minutes before someone had pointed Keith out to them. Chip thought it might have been more like ten minutes, because they'd spent at least five minutes trying to ditch their Orientation leader, but no matter how you sliced it, it'd been pretty fast.

"And?" Pidge asked, pushing his glasses up his nose. "What's so special about him?"

"He's _Keith Davies_ ," the Orientor replied. "His sibs have made no fewer than three teachers cry, and the way I hear, he's the worst of them all."

"Really?" Chip looked over at Keith, then back to his brother. "Doesn't seem all _that_ bad."

"Trust me. He's." The Orientor shuddered, a half-shimmy of rippling shoulders and flailing arms. "He's just. The way he looks at you with those eyes. Like you're not even there."

Chip rolled his eyes. "That just means he's rude."

"Keith Davies? Rude?" The Orientor snorted a laugh. "Man, he's like polite to the point of being _too_ polite, y'know? And, anyway, how the hell can he be in the number one spot in _all_ of his classes if he's not intimidating the teachers into padding his grades, huh?"

"Hmph," Chip said, and Keith turned a corner and was gone, and the talk went on to the hours the dining hall was open, and the rules for using the gym, and Chip didn't really think about that Keith kid until Jeff asked him to check for whirring parts.

Pidge didn't really give too much thought to Keith either, at least not until they ended up assigned to the same team, and years later, after wars and blood and lives nearly lost, Pidge always ended up blushing, a little, ashamed by a first impression made from urban myths told by jealous children – so very, very different from the man Keith actually was. But the thing was, the view of Keith as the inscrutable superman was actually his _second_ impression because the first thing Pidge thought when he saw Keith – that very first impression made at the sight of sloped shoulders and a rapid walk and one hand tightly gripping the black strap of his bag – was how strange it was to see someone walking through the Quad by themselves, and in that split second before his classmates started in on the stories, all Pidge could think was _here is a man who knows all about being alone_.


	4. John & Keith, Keith age 15

John loved his boy, he really did, but some days all he wanted to do was take Keith over his knee and give him a good spanking. He'd never had this problem with William or Anna, and for the life of him he couldn't figure out what had gone wrong with his third child, what had happened to the smiling baby who'd cooed and giggled at him and loved him with out condition. Where had that happy baby gone, and who was this stranger, this sullen youth that had taken his place?

"Keith," he said, tightening his grip on the wheel, and then said nothing more because he couldn't think of anything to say.

The problem, of course, was that there _wasn't_ anything to say -- no overt, identifiable failing on the part of his youngest. If anything Keith was the best and the brightest of all his children -- top scores in all his classes, honor roll, polite, faultless and blameless, and maybe that was it. Maybe it was because Will and Anna had gotten him so used to thirteen marking the start of a decade long fight, to pitched battles over everything and nothing, that the fact that there was nothing to fight over with Keith had him so turned around and confused that he was looking for a battle, looking for a war.

"Keith," he tried again, and he was so awkward at this, he knew it, he'd always been bad at this and that had been the cause of so many family scars between himself and his children. He cleared his throat, and cast a quick look at the boy riding shotgun beside him. "Keith, you did good."

"Thank you," Keith said, but he didn't turn his head or stop looking at the scenery unfolding in endless monotony around them.

John sighed, softly, and looked back at the road. No wars to fight with Keith, at least none that Keith started, and maybe that made him easier than Will and Anna, because there'd be no petulant scowling brought on by some imagined slight, no slamming doors or incoherent shrieking, but John didn't care about that, didn't care about any of it because he'd give anything for a flicker of adolescent anger. Give anything to see just a hint of fire in his son.


	5. The Davies Kids, Keith age 15

They -- and by they, Will really meant he and Anna -- found out about Sven the bad way, to whit, walking in on them while Keith was in the middle of giving Sven a blowjob. And, okay, so maybe it was kind of their fault (like Anna insisted) because, yes, the whole reason they'd gone into Keith's room in the first place was because Will had heard moaning as he'd walked past Keith's door and, as Will liked to point out, it was the duty of big brothers to permanently scar their little brothers for life by walking in on them while they were masturbating, even if said older brother was twenty-three and really should have known better. That Anna happened to be there was just a happy coincidence.

Still, of all the things Will had expected to see when opening Keith's door, the sight of his baby brother going down on another guy was definitely not one of them.

"Jesus fuck!" he said, and Anna had said, "Oh lord, my eyes!" and Keith had looked up, red faced and eyes big and then Will had managed to make his brain connect with his arm muscles and got the door closed before he could see anything else.

"Shit," Will said, leaning against the door. Anna gave him a look of pure disgust (which Will was really starting to tired of by this time, because she'd been giving him that same look since she'd turned twelve and learned that the rapping on the wall she heard whenever she took a shower was not, in fact, the "Shower Killer" like he'd told her, but just Will trying to freak her out) and her mouth twisted as though she was swallowing several very choice phrases.

"You're such a son of a bitch, you know that?" she said at last.

"Hey, watch what you say about your mother." But his heart wasn't really in it because all he could think was: guys? really?

"Asswipe." Anna ran her fingers through her hair -- short and blue, this week -- and chewed on her bottom lip, which meant that she was really worried about something.

"Look," he began, but Keith chose that moment to come out into the hall, looking like he hadn't just been sucking on some other guy's dick, and Will got distracted by the suddenly chilling realization that this wasn't something new.

"So, um," Keith began, clearing his throat the way Dad did when he was trying to say something he didn't want to.

"Guys, huh?" Will said, instead, and he wanted to say _what the fuck are you thinking?_ and _do you use protection?_ and _so, what, is that guy your boyfriend?_ and _oh, god, please tell me you don't do that to strangers._

"Yeah," Keith said, and he didn't duck his head like he normally did when he was trying to get out of a conversation he didn't want to be in, like backing down and being all 'aw shucks' and cute could save him -- although, come to think of it, Keith did manage to avoid talking about more things that way than Will had ever really realized before.

"Well." Will let out a long breath, and watched the way Keith's ears reddened, and how his shoulders tightened up, tensed like he was expecting a fight of some or another, and the whole man-sex thing aside, all Will could see was the same little brother who'd kicked him in the nads for trying to make him go snipe hunting.

"You, uh." Anna looked away, stared at the god-awful painting of great-grandma Irene. "You've done this before."

"Yeah."

"With that guy?"

"Yeah. Um. His name's Sven." And now Keith looked down, but Will knew that it was because he was blushing and he hated to blush. "We're um. It's a thing. He's in my class."

"So. Not a bet."

Keith's head snapped up, and he glared at Anna. "No, not a bet. Come on. Who do you think I am?"

"Well, fuck Keith, I know you suck at poker," Anna said.

"I'm good enough," Keith grumbled, and he shoved his hands into his pockets and scowled at his feet. "Anyway. You guys gonna tell Mom'n'Dad 'bout this?"

"Why?" Will said, and he nudged Keith with his shoulder. "But, seriously. Guys? I mean, like, for real, for real?"

"Yeah, guys."

"Huh." Will tilted his head to the side. "Now, see, I always thought that if any of us went gay it'd be Anna."

"What?"

"Oh come on. Mom'n'Dad've been bracing themselves for the day you bring some leather-queen home and say 'Mom, Dad, I want you to me Kris, my girlfriend.'"

"God," Anna said, rolling her eyes in exasperation. "You are _such_ a jerk."

"Hey," Will said. "I'm your big brother. It's, like, my job."


	6. The Keith/Sven breakup, Keith age 16

"This isn't working," Sven said and the only thing that surprised Keith about it was that it hadn't happened sooner.

"I'm sorry," he said, and Sven didn't argue with him, just looked over at the bar.

"I love you," he said, softly and without dramatics. "But I can't – I can't do this if you're not _here_ , if you don't. . ." Sven trailed off and shrugged helplessly, but Keith knew what he was trying to say.

"I'm sorry," he said again, because he really didn't know what else to say or do to get rid of the glass inside him that kept the world at bay, and after a while Sven nodded, slowly and stood up.

"I'll always love you. I'll always be your friend," he said, and he kissed Keith one last time and then walked away and Keith didn't know what he was supposed to do. Was he supposed to cry? To chase after Sven? To maybe lie and say that what he felt was love – because he was sure he loved Sven, only it wasn't with the same hot need that Sven loved him and he wasn't sure if that would be enough or if that was all the love he could ever give.

He peeled the label off his beer bottle and shredded it slowly and he was still so confused.

"Hey little bit." Jojo's hand was damp when it touched Keith's shoulder. "What's shaking, man?"

"Sven dumped me," Keith said, and he looked up at Jojo. "And I don't know what to do."

"Well that's easy honey," Jojo said. "You need to get drunk."

"Okay," Keith said, because that was as good a choice as any.


	7. Pidge, age 12

It was supposed to be a simple experiment in fluid dynamics and surface tension, and Professor Marshall liked to use it as the first lab of the semester because it was simple, non-hazardous, and _nobody_ ever skipped lab after it. James liked it because in the seven times he'd run the lab – once as the Prof's student and the rest as a TA – the worst thing he'd ever had to do after it was clean up all the spilled soda. Of course, that had been before he'd had the Beringer kid.

James gave the workstation one last spray with the fire extinguisher before turning to Pidge, who at least had the dignity to look embarrassed.

"It's soda and mentos," he said. "How the hell did you set it on fire?"

"Just talented, I guess."


	8. Henry and Keith

"You're the spitting image of your mother," Henry said and Keith blinked at him and said, "Um. Thank you, sir."

"Your brother, now, he takes after your father, poor lad; your daddy is not a handsome man, you know, which just goes to show you that God has a sense of humor because his mother was a beautiful woman – you ever seen pictures of your grandmother as a younger woman, Keith? My God she was a sight to see – like your sister would be if she'd just stop fucking around with her hair."

"Yes sir," Keith said again, then, "Uh, was this what you wanted to see me about?"

"'Course not, boy, but I've known you since you were nothing more than a tiny snot factory that barfed a lot and it's not like either you or I have more important places to be for the next few hours _and_ I'm a superior officer, so you just sit your ass down and let an old man reminisce at you for a bit."

"Okay Uncle Henry," Keith said, and he smiled John's polite, distant, diplomat smile with Mary's open, friendly face and the sight of that smile both broke Henry's heart and made him, perversely, satisfied.

Henry scratched at his beard to cover his discomfort and said, "I ever tell you about how your father and I met?"

"No, sir."

"Damndest thing. This must've been back, lord, more years than I care to remember. It happened that I was at _The Kingsmen_ – which wasn't the best bar in the area in my time and I hate to think what's happened to it since – with a girl I was trying to impress and your father, who was as drunk as a lord, kept trying to hit on her; this was back before he met your mother, of course. Well, of course I couldn't let this go so the next day I looked him up and told him to meet me out in the field 'round the back of the school, and the bastard hauled off and popped me one right there in the middle of the hallway. Hell of a temper your father had in those days – seems like every time you turned around he was either in the middle of a fight or at the infirmary getting himself put back together. I remember telling your father back when your brother was in the Academy and kept getting into all those fights, 'Lord, Johnny, you were five times worse than he was and you turned out okay.'

"'Course, that's the way it is with parents, isn't it? They don't want their kids to make the same mistakes they did, but some things you just can't help. Your brother, he's got a lot of your daddy's temper in him, and just as much of his stubbornness – him and your sister both. Born fighters the two of them, and who can blame them when they've got your father's fire burning up their souls? Still, I expect we'll be hearing great things about the both of them since they've got your mother's knack for making that fire useful."

"Yes sir."

"Too bad they don't have a bit more of your mother in them – they could both use her knack at stepping back and seeing everything. Your father's a good man, but he's not very good at seeing anything but trees, you see? He gets too focused for his own good, sometimes. Now your mother, she was always good at looking at the big picture, which made her a hell of a card player – you ever play poker with your mother? I lost a brand new car to her one night. 'Course your mother tends to get too involved with her projects – I remember the night she set fire to the place they were living in because she wanted to try an honest-to-goodness gas stove.

"Good people, your folks. Good people." Henry cleared his throat and blinked a couple of times and looked at John and Mary's son who was sitting on the other side of his desk, at this child with Mary's big-picture views and John's painstaking precision and all of their intelligence and intuition and charisma and none of John's tendency to fly off the handle when backed into a corner. Quiet and polite and competent and Henry hoped that John and Mary would never, _never_ hear about what he was about to do.

"Good people," Henry said again and he wasn't sure if he was thanking God for dropping this gift in his lap or cursing Him for making him into the kind of person who'd see a boy like Keith and think of him as a tool and not the son of his dearest friends. "But I've rambled enough for today. Now, Keith, what I'm about to tell you doesn't leave this room, understand?"

"Yes sir," Keith said, and Henry murmured, "Good lad," and ignored the sound of his heart breaking.


	9. Will, age 22

He ended up working in the free law clinic because he'd lost all of his travel money betting on a pair of twos and he had a very strict policy about not telling his folks that he occasionally dabbled in gambling, and this place really appreciated someone with his mutant research skills, and for the most part it was a pretty good gig except for the bits where it wasn't.

"I don't get it," he told Mike when he'd been there three months and seen fifteen cases about water rights. "I mean, the law is right there: Andorians get first crack at fresh water to use in their traditional agricultural practices. So why all the law suits?"

"Politics." Mike swallowed the last bite of his pizza and wiped the grease off on his pants. "Yeah Andorians get first crack, but what if they want to use the water for something other than farming Kol? It's not like there's a big demand for the stuff, y'know, and maybe the water could be better used by Farmer Bob to grow some maize? Also, you gotta think about the geography here – I mean, there's a good chunk of people living in areas that don't have a natural source of water, so they gotta pipe it in, but then you've got a bunch of pissed off Andorians claiming these folks are stealing their water. On the other hand, you've also got these mega-'sorts built on top of natural aquifers in blatant violation of the law and what're you gong to do? In that sort of case, the whole 'possession being nine-tenths of the law' thing isn't exactly a cliché."

"Yeah, but, it's, y'know the law. I mean, it's written right there, for everybody to see."

"Billy-boy, I think you're going to find that a lot of the times the 'law' isn't worth the plexi it's printed on."

"Well, it should be."


	10. Will, age 23

After dinner, Dad poured him a glass of scotch and they went out to the porch and for a while the only sound was the old, familiar noises of Dad trying to get his pipe lit. Will rubbed the glass between his palms and decided to not mention that what he actually wanted right now was a beer, and instead tried to guess what his father was thinking.

"So," Dad said after he finally got his pipe going. "A lawyer, huh?"

"Yeah." Will put the glass of scotch down and rubbed his slippery palms against his pants. "Figured I'd save us all a bit of money on the legal fees by learning how to defend myself."

"Mm hmm." His father sucked thoughtfully on the stem of his pipe and didn't say anything else and Will really should have known that nothing he said would make this into anything other than a serious conversation.

"Look," he said at last, "bucking the system obviously didn't work, so maybe it's time I tried changing it from within."

"And becoming a lawyer will do that?"

"Well, you can't change what you don't understand."


	11. Keith, age 18

Keith shoved another handful of clothes into his duffel and said, "He kicked me out."

Mary watched her youngest from the door and decided that she wouldn't tell him how much he looked like his father right then. "But weren't you planning on moving out anyway?"

"Well, yes," Keith said, "but that's not the point."

"Keith, sweetheart --"

"Save it, Mom, I'm not going to change my mind no matter what you say."

"Keith, I wouldn't dream of changing your mind." Mary picked up a shirt from the floor and absently folded it. "I just wanted to tell you that I think this is a good thing."

Keith stopped shoving things into his duffel and stared at her. "A _good_ thing? Mom!"

"Keith, you're eighteen years old. I think it's time you got a place of your own, that you got to live your own life."

"Mom, he's _disowning_ me."

"Oh stop being so melodramatic," Mary said. "Honestly, the two of you."

"Mom--"

"Don't make out like you're the victim here, kiddo. Now your father can be a grade-A blockhead, but it's not like you're coming out of this thing smelling like roses."

"I just." Keith fiddled with the strap of his bag, and Mary could tell that the anger he'd been holding on to had finally faded, and all that was left was a lost, confused little boy. "I just. I thought that this was what he wanted."

"Sweetheart, your father rarely has a clue as to what he wants." She sat down on the bed, and her son wasn't too old to rest his head on her shoulder and let her stroke his hair -- he'd never be too old for that, and even when he was, she was still going to do it; it was her right as a mother, after all.

"I thought he'd be happy."

"He is, darling, he is. He's just." Mary looked out the window at the sun and the trees as she tried to find the words to explain to her child how impossible it was for parents to look at the adults their children had become and not see them as the small, helpless, babies they had been; find the words to tell Keith that even though this argument might have seemed to be about Keith's decision to enroll in the Academy's graduate program, to become an officer like his father, that it wasn't about that at all, but rather the fear of all parents have at the thought that they might outlive their children.

"He's an idiot," Keith grumbled, and Mary decided that that word worked just as well as any other.

"Yes," she said, softly. "Yes, he is."


	12. The Davies siblings

Keith lay back on the grass and closed his eyes against the late afternoon sunshine and said, "You both suck, you know that."

"Yeah? And why's that?" Will said and his beer bottle clinked against a rock as he set it down.

"Well, you guys've made Bubbie's dream come true, haven't you? I mean, a doctor and lawyer in one family? Bubbie's probably plotzing she's so happy. And where does that leave me, huh?"

"You could always become a rabbi," Anna said and Keith cracked open an eye to give her a flat look until she laughed and said, "yeah, you're right, never mind."

"I'd say you could be the first to give her grandkids but you're gay so that won't work," Will said.

"You could teach."

"Or, hey, maybe you could be ambassador like Dad."

"Anyway, what does it matter?" Will said. "Bubbie loves you best and we all know it. So what's it to you what we do?"

"Nothing," Keith said. "I just thought you guys should know you both suck is all."


	13. Keith, age 20

The one party he'd gone to -- the one that wasn't some big social thing, as much for the Brass as it was for them, the one that was held in some random guy's off-campus hellhole, with beer in a keg and plastic cups and screwdrivers being the height of sophistication -- he'd lasted about ten minutes before the antsy, shaky, impatient feeling hit him and he started checking his watch and looking for exits. It was stupid, because he _knew_ that there wasn't anything better waiting for him out in the darkness beyond the house, that if he left now he'd just end up going back to his room and working on the battle schematics for his aerial assault class, boredom and inertia combining to make him seem like something he really wasn't. But he couldn't manage to drown out the insistent little voice inside him, the one who kept telling him that there was something better than this, something louder and crazier than a room full of cadets and warm, cheap beer in a red plastic cup.

"You're leaving?" Sven shouted at him, and Keith shrugged and grinned and nodded.

It was just as dark and cold outside as he'd known it would be, and not once did Keith think about turning around and going back inside -- back to the party, to the world that he knew he needed to be a part of because that was where all the _real_ connections were made, where all the important foundations for future friends and future favors were laid. He just turned up his collar against the wind and shoved his hands into his pockets and trudged back to the dorms because he just. He couldn't find it in himself to care.


	14. Anna, age 28

The kid was a goner before they brought him in and they should've called it out in the rig and the triage nurses definitely shouldn't have sent him on through and Anna shouldn't have taken it on and kept trying to make him live for five minutes after he was beyond dead. Anyway, he didn't even look a thing like Keith except for the fact that he was young and he had black hair.

Afterwards, she didn't cry or get blind drunk or even just a little drunk like Robin, the other new trauma surgeon, had the first time she'd lost a patient. Instead she just threw the blood-soaked scrubs into the biohazard bin and when her shift was over she took a long, hot shower, and changed back into her street clothes and found a phone booth.

"If you _ever_ drive drunk I'll kill you," she said as soon as she was sure Keith had picked up the phone. "And if you happen to die in a horrible car crash 'cause you were drunk and driving, I'll desecrate your body and put a sister's curse on your soul and make sure you get reincarnated as something really and truly horrible."

"Do you have any idea what fucking time it is?" Keith said, sleepy and cross.

"I don't care. A sister's curse, you hear me? And desecration of your mortal remains."

"What do I care what you do with my dead body? It's not like I'm going to be using it anymore." Keith yawned and the sound triggered all of the exhaustion Anna had managed to fight off and it ganged up and hit her from behind so that she had to clutch the top of the phone to keep herself upright. "Anyway, shouldn't you be having this conversation with Will?"

"Will's already got a sister's curse on him. Plus he's old enough to know better. You, however, are still young and stupid and you obviously think you're fucking invincible given your life choices and I'm telling you you're not and so you better fucking promise me that you'll never – _never_ – drive even a goddamn tricycle if you're drunk."

"I'm going back to bed, now."

"Promise me, Keith."

"Fine, yes, I promise, okay?" Keith sighed, gusty and full of static over the phone. "Shit, this wasn't the reason I gave you my phone number, you know? And if you call me at three in the morning again I'm so going to change my number and not tell you."

"Okay." Anna said, and she hung up and leaned back against the cold glass walls of the phone booth until she was sure she was okay enough to drive.


	15. Hunk, entering the military

It wasn't like Maturin was a terrible place to grow up, or that Hunk had particularly objected to growing up on a farm, it was just that he took after his father and grandfather and great-grandfather in more than the big shoulders and an enjoyment of working with his hands.

"You sure you want to do this, son?" his father asked him and Hunk shrugged and looked up at the stars and said, "I'm sure I want to see what lies beyond our star."


	16. Hunk, a sergeant at heart

He was covered in mud, and he was cold, and it was their third week of choking down the bland, gritty, chewy nutribars and he'd been listening to the dumbasses on the other side wasting their ammo for so long that the only time he noticed the noise anymore was when it stopped. Not the best way Hunk had ever spent a winter, but then again he'd had worst.

He was just debating whether or not it was safe to smoke a cigarette when McEnroe slid into his foxhole and Hunk was reaching for his sidearm because his crew didn't just drop by for a talk.

"Hey Sarge," McEnroe said, and that was when Hunk realized that McEnroe was smiling and while Hunk put down his sidearm he certainly didn't feel reassured.

"Private."

"Want some stew?"

"Stew."

"Yeah. We got, uh, spuds, and a couple of rabbits, and some carrots, and Shane found some onions and what he thinks are herbs and stuff."

"Uh huh." Hunk tilted his head. "What's the catch?"

"Why do you think there's a catch?"

"McEnroe, I've got five younger brothers and sisters. There's _always_ a catch."

"Right. Uh. Well, we don't got a pot, and we ran out of fire starters and, uh, well we figured you'd know what we needed to do."

"Uh huh." Hunk crossed his arms and looked up at the sky, which was full of smoke from the exploding shells. "Well, fire's no problem 'cause I still got my lighter. How many helmets we got?"

"Uh, 'bout seven, I think," McEnroe said. "Harper's one is no good 'cause he took one in the head, but, yeah, seven."

"Okay. Go round 'em up and see if you can find something to sling the straps through so we're not burning the bottom and we'll have ourselves a real foxhole stew, just like my pops used to make."

"Thanks Sarge," McEnroe said and up and down the line came the shout of, "Haul ass, boys, the bastards are trying to outflank us!" and the next time he had a moment to think, he was on his back and McEnroe stuffing bandages into the gaping hole in his leg.

"Some night, huh Sarge," McEnroe said

"Sure beats milking cows," Hunk grunted and then said, "Where the fuck's my morphine?"


	17. Sven and his family

At five o'clock in the morning a cannon went off outside his room and Sven nearly had a heart attack. He lay in bed and it took him a long moment to remember that he was at home and it was just his crazy father playing with his guns.

"He so needs a woman," he muttered to himself and rolled over and went back to sleep.


	18. Pidge, cooking

It wasn't that they tasted bad or anything, because Pidge had used a recipe and Pidge was good at following recipes. No, the real problem with the brownies was the fact that Pidge had a truly twisted sense of humor and had filled them with red-velvet icing and done _something_ to them to make them scream in a horrible – and life-like – fashion whenever anybody happened to take a bite.

"I still don't see why I got detention," Pidge grumbled, after Keith had managed to convince Mr. McGerry that expelling Pidge was bit of an overreaction. "I was only trying an experiment in aversion therapy."


	19. Pidge, more cooking

"Happy Birthday!" Pidge said and put down the chocolate cake. Sven eyed it warily and although it didn't explode after five minutes of good eyeballing, that didn't necessarily mean anything.

"What is this," Sven said at last, and Pidge grinned at him and said, "Chocolate cake."

"Uh huh." Sven grabbed a pencil and carefully probed the cake's sides. "You made it?"

"Yup."

"Think I'll pass, then."

Pidge rolled his eyes. "Would you guys get over that whole brownie thing already?"

"I would have if you hadn't made my steak moo two weeks later."

"It was just a joke."

"Uh huh. Some joke."

"Would you just take a piece already?"

"You first."

"You guys are so paranoid," Pidge said, and he cut a piece of the cake and took a bite and absolutely nothing happened. Sven pursed his lips and looked at the cake and, well, it did look good and he'd always liked chocolate cake and it wasn't until he'd taken his first bite that he remembered that it wasn't his birthday.

He was still kicking himself when the whole thing exploded.


	20. The beginning of Sven/Lance, age 20

The problem with a break-up like theirs – where it had been a sort of slow dissolution and not a sudden, massive implosion – was that when Keith looked at him with those big puppy-dog eyes and begged him to come along because his housemates were dragging him to a party and he needed backup, Sven said, "Sure, why not?" since they were still friends and this was what friends did for each other. Which was how Sven ended up drinking lukewarm beer and surrounded by a mass of seething hormones when what he really wanted to be doing was sitting in a quiet room, smoking a cigarette, and working on his lit. paper before he failed out of the Academy.

And that, of course, had led directly to his current problem, to whit the fact that he'd gotten extremely drunk, because he always got extremely drunk at these things, and ended up having what had probably been extremely bad drunken sex with some random guy. At least, he was assuming was what had happened because it was morning and he was naked and this was definitely not his room and his wake-up call had consisted of a distinctly masculine voice saying, "Good morning, sunshine."

Sven squinted up at the indistinct blur until it finally resolved itself into a face. "Hey. I know you. Lance, right?"

"Lance Schrodinger. We're both in Professor Andrews' class."

"Yeah." Sven sat up slowly. "Listen, about last night –"

"You mean when we declared our undying love for each other and then had really rowdy sex?" Lance said, and Sven winced.

"Yeah. About that –"

"Dude, I'm just fucking with you. Nothing happened."

"Oh. Uh. Then why am I naked?"

"You puked all over yourself and there was no way I'd put you in my bed all covered in puke like that."

"Uh huh. And, uh, why am I in your bed?"

"Well I do want to sleep with you at some point and if you choke to death on your own vomit that definitely cuts down on my chances to do that."

"I see. And you think announcing your intentions will make me want to sleep with you?"

"No," Lance said slowly, "I think the fact that I have a sure-fire hangover cure, a nice ass, and coffee will make you want to sleep with me."

"Hmm," Sven said, and despite himself he felt a smile coming on. "You may be right."


	21. Keith, thinking about Lance and Sven

For about six weeks after Lance and Sven started dating, Keith had been happy for them, because he liked Lance and he liked Sven and he had pretty much resigned himself to life in a self-imposed plastic bubble since he just couldn't seem to really connect with people.

Six weeks and one day later, he jacked off in the shower while fantasizing about fucking Lance, and although he felt like the biggest asshole in the world, it didn't stop him from doing exactly the same thing five minutes later.


End file.
